Chapter 13 - THE DAY TESSA STOPPED WORKING FOR ME
Tessa never returned as my aide.
At first, I hated that.
Then I understood why it had to happen.
Federal investigators relocated Mia temporarily.
Tessa gave statements.
Her agency records proved Arya had specifically requested her assignment.
The insurance fraud proved someone planned to use her as a future suspect.
Tessa became a witness.
Not an employee.
That boundary saved both of us from something messier.
Three weeks passed.
My rehabilitation moved to an outpatient spinal center.
Every morning I worked.
Transfers.
Wheelchair skills.
Upper-body conditioning.
Standing frame.
Supported stepping with braces when appropriate.
No miracle.
No dramatic morning where my legs suddenly obeyed.
Progress came in insulting little pieces.
A muscle contraction.
Better balance.
Two fewer seconds during a transfer.
A little more sensation.
A little less help.
I began loving those pieces.
One Thursday, Nathan placed parallel bars beside me.
“We’re trying supported standing.”
“I already use the frame.”
“Today you’re doing more of it.”
With braces, two therapists, and enough effort to make my vision blur, I came upright.
My legs did not hold me normally.
They might never.
But I was vertical.
Not cured.
Not fixed.
Vertical.
I looked across the room.
Tessa stood near the doorway.
I almost lost balance.
Nathan caught my shoulder.
“Eyes forward, Romeo.”
“Shut up.”
Tessa laughed.
After therapy, we sat outside beneath a maple tree.
Not employer and employee.
Just two people with terrible timing.
“You look better,” she said.
“So do you.”
“I slept.”
“Show-off.”
Silence settled.
Then I said, “I miss you.”
She stared at the parking lot.
“I miss you too.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
“Very.”
I wanted to touch her hand.
I didn’t.
Not yet.
“I don’t want gratitude confused with—”
“It isn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know I hated you sometimes.”
I smiled.
“Comforting.”
“I hated what your company did to Mia. I hated how arrogant you were. I hated that you thought the only recovery that mattered was walking.”
“And now?”
“Now I think you’re arrogant with improved wheelchair skills.”
I laughed.
Then she looked at me.
“But I also think you’re trying.”
That mattered more than praise.
My phone rang.
Sam.
“They have Dominic.”
“Where?”
“Airport.”
He had attempted to leave for Montreal using another man’s passport.
Federal agents arrested him before boarding.
Dr. Voss was cooperating.
Harold was cooperating.
Corporate servers had been recovered.
The case was closing around Arya.
“Where is she?”
Sam went quiet.
“Gone.”
My smile disappeared.
“When?”
“Sometime overnight.”
Arya’s passport remained at her apartment.
Her accounts were frozen.
Her car was found abandoned.
For thirty-six hours, nobody knew where she was.
Then Michael called.
“She’s here.”
“Where?”
“Your house.”
My old instincts exploded.
“What?”
“She got through the east service entrance before security saw her.”
“Tessa—”
“I’m not going with you.”
Good.
I went with police.
Arya sat in my bedroom.
Our bedroom.
The engagement dress she had chosen months earlier lay across the bed.
She held nothing.
No weapon.
No bag.
Just the ring.
“You came home,” she said.
“This isn’t your home.”
Tears filled her eyes.
This time they looked real.
“I loved you.”
I believed she believed that.
Maybe part of her did.
“You had me shot.”
“I never wanted the bullet to hit your spine.”
I stared at her.
“That’s your defense?”
“I wanted time.”
“For what?”
“To get control before Dominic ruined everything.”
“You planned to take my company.”
“I planned to take back what your family stole from mine.”
“And Tessa?”
Arya looked away.
“She was insurance.”
My stomach turned.
“A human being was insurance?”
“That’s how your family thinks.”
“No.”
I rolled closer.
“That’s how you chose to think.”
Police stepped forward.
Arya began crying.
“Vincent, please.”
Six months earlier, that voice could move me.
Now I felt only grief for someone I had loved who had become unrecognizable.
Then she said something that stopped everyone.
“Dominic didn’t fire the shot.”
Agent Morris looked at her.
“Who did?”
Arya closed her hand around the ring.
“Rinaldi.”
“We know.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Rinaldi arranged the roadblock.”
“Then who fired?”
May you like
Arya looked directly at me.
“Your own security chief.”
